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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29469000">union of the snake</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggierachael/pseuds/maggierachael'>maggierachael</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>love is a two way street, my dear [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Found Family, Gen, Hitman AU, actual genius surgeon ellaria sand, aka we finally get ellaria and sand snake bonding timeeee, aside from mentions of blood and sutures, because ellaria likes to think she's not like oberyn, but she can and will adopt every girl in a 300 foot radius as her own, ellaria is just Mom Mode Activated for this entire fic, featuring guest appearances from yara and myrcella, hello yes i have projected my own eldest daughter feelings onto obara sand so that's where we're at, no graphic depictions of injury, obara and ellaria are now ride or die for each other i don't make the rules, welcome to the family kids my boyfriend's a mercenary</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:13:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,226</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29469000</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggierachael/pseuds/maggierachael</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Dr. Mormont wanted me to tell you there’s a patient for you in 304. Looks like a knife wound to the stomach, but won’t let anyone sew it up.”<br/>Yara tipped her head, maintaining eye contact despite her clear hesitation. Ellaria frowned. She didn't deal with emergency cases.<br/>“And this girl is my concern because...?”<br/>"She keeps asking for you, ma'am." </p><p>+++</p><p>When you get involved with one Martell, you get involved with them all. Not a fact Ellaria is prepared to learn in the middle of a busy surgery shift.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ellaria Sand &amp; Obara Sand, Ellaria Sand &amp; Sand Snakes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>love is a two way street, my dear [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2079096</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>union of the snake</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Nightshades on a warning<br/>Give me strength at least give me a light<br/>Give me anything even sympathy<br/>There's a chance you could be right...</p><p>-"Union of the Snake", Duran Duran</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Ellaria was exhausted. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been a long week. One of all nights, bleeding endlessly into one another, separated only by brief periods of childcare and Disney Junior theme tunes. A week of too much caffeine and dry, cracked hands, hours of paperwork and administrators whispering in her ear when she’d rather they just buggered off. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was shivering against the chill of her office, the blast of cold air that filtered in no matter whether it was January or June. She knew she should get up, take a walk. Do anything to get herself out of her own head. She spent too much time in there, more than she spent in this godforsaken office. She loved her job, she really did, but it gave her too much time to think. Too much time to mull when she should be finishing charts. Too much time to overanalyze. To pace in an imaginary empty room, the sound of her own hollow heels like a nail gun in the side of her head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once, these weeks had been thrilling. A long time ago, when she’d still been eager to please, full of enough energy to run up and down flights of stairs all night. Back when she was young, and childless, and hadn’t yet graduated to the point of being harassed by men who cared more about the hospital’s income than the patients it served. Once, she’d been full of life. Of joie de vivre, a drive to be the best woman she could be. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, all she wanted to be was the woman who survived until she reached her bed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dr. Sand?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The name was like a bomb going off in the silence. Her own name, as foreign to her distracted ears as the Farsi her aunts used to speak at home. It evicted her from her own head, pulled her back to the reality that was the beginning of another exhausting night. It was a rude landlord, one she only dealt with when she had to - which was more often than she would’ve liked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At this rate, she almost preferred “my dove”. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The voice of the landlord, the form it had chosen to take this time, sounded unfamiliar. Usually it was gruffer, darker - some administrator or fellow surgeon bothering her about something, or a reluctant young attending coming to fetch her for surgery. This voice was none of that. It said her name with respect, reverence. Maybe even a bit of fear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ellaria looked up from where she’d zoned out, to meet the eyes of the person who’d invaded her doorway. A slight little thing, who barely blocked the light coming from the hall. Yara something, her brain supplied, one of the residents she hadn’t yet befriended. Daughter of one of the board members, if Ellaria remembered correctly. She tried not to hold that against her - especially with how nervous she looked, arms wrapped around a patient clipboard like her life depended on it. Like Ellaria had, what felt like a lifetime ago. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a mercy to look up from her paperwork, even if it meant having to be social when she hardly had the energy to open her mouth. She’d never had a problem with the residents - not even the ones who’d been guaranteed a place in the program by their parents. She knew what it felt like to be one, to always have a boulder strapped to your back, and be forced to run a marathon with it. They were good kids. Mostly girls this time, she’d noticed. She liked it, having that buffer of the feminine to guard against the shrivelling old men who sat upstairs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dr. Mormont wanted me to tell you there’s a patient for you in 304.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yara tipped her head, maintaining eye contact despite her clear hesitation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Young girl,” she said. “Looks like a knife wound to the stomach, but won’t let anyone sew it up. Screaming bloody murder about it.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>No wonder she didn’t know Yara - 304 was the ER. Two floors down and around a bend, wrapped in a franticness Ellaria no longer had the energy to endure. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t work emergency cases. Not ones for knife wounds, anyway. She was the big guns, reserved for heart attacks and punctured lungs and everything else too gruesome for the daytime. She specialized for a reason, to keep her own sanity in check and to prove that yes, all those years of medical school had been worth it after all. She kept to herself, to her nice, clean office that slowly blinded her with its laminated-by-paperwork surfaces and cold fluorescent lighting that she would swear would eventually give her chemical burns.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stabbings were beyond her - at least during work hours. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And this girl is my concern because...?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The attempt at keeping shortness out of her voice failed, the planks of social niceties splitting out from under her as she gazed up at Yara. It wasn’t the girl’s fault, it was her exhaustion’s, but all the same: sometimes a shot goes wide and hits the messenger anyway. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yara stiffened, the universal stance of a resident terrified to speak for fear of being terminated. Whatever her reasoning, it definitely had nothing to do with Ellaria being punk’d and told she could leave her shift early. Her hands tightened almost imperceptibly on the clipboard. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She keeps asking for you, ma’am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Shit. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Only a handful of people in Ellaria’s life knew what she did for a living. Even fewer knew where she worked. Even fewer still had a reason to call on her there, brandishing wounds that didn’t just happen from an accident in the kitchen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The pronoun eliminated her immediate concern - stitching up a prince of the tabloids in the middle of an already hellish shift - but brought about a handful of others in its place. About seven, to be specific. Four, if she really wanted to narrow it down. All worth more in a day than she’d ever make in her lifetime. Unless, by some miracle, it was someone else, some complete stranger spouting nonsense she’d have to call the psych ward for, she knew exactly what she was dealing with. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The only question now was, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Which one?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it life-threatening?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She prayed to every god she could think of that the answer would be no. She wasn’t prepared for that, wasn’t prepared for the responsibility of a Martell’s life in her hands - the life of a child, of a daughter she’d come to know as her own. She was hardly qualified for the ER as it was. “Too fragile”, “too emotional”, “not tough enough”; all words whispered behind her back when it was thought she couldn’t hear, all words that kept her confined to her nice, scheduled surgeries and her clean office, despite knowing she could do more. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She prayed the answer would be no, because she wasn’t sure she could make it to the other side of a yes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yara, mercifully, seemed to read her mind - sweet girl. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not that we can tell,” she said, her shoulders loosening when Ellaria’s did. “She walked herself into the emergency room alright. We’re mostly concerned about possible nerve damage, depending on how deep the wound is.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nerve damage. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not ideal, but something Ellaria could handle. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And she hasn’t let you touch her.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She reiterated Yara’s statement as she pushed her glasses up on her head. The resident nodded, hands loosening their death grip around the clipboard now that she knew a firing wasn’t imminent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only to take her temperature.” She waved vaguely in the direction of her own forehead, her hands as cracked and dry as Ellaria’s. “No fever, but she’s shaking.” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>As is the normal response when you’ve been stabbed, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Ellaria thought. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This was not what she’d wanted for her night. She’d wanted a quiet shift, enough to finish her charts between surgeries and maybe get a little bit of shut-eye if she was lucky. She’d wanted something normal, some semblance of the life she’d been living for years without major fault. A life that didn’t border on the fantastic and bizarre and sound like someone’s trashed television. What she’d gotten herself into was inevitable, but Ellaria was a stubborn woman. She had built this life and she was going to live it.. For her and for her daughter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What she was failing to realize was that she had never been a normal woman to begin with. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The administrators would talk, no matter if the girl gave Yara a name or not. She knew that much. What was a young woman doing, waltzing into the ER at eleven on a Friday night, screaming for Ellaria Sand? Who was she, and what did she have to do with one of Casterly General’s best surgeons? What did </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ellaria</span>
  </em>
  <span> have to do with young women who were prone to being stabbed?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>People would talk, and she </span>
  <em>
    <span>hated</span>
  </em>
  <span> when they did that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You said 304?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was already shoving up the sleeves of her scrubs, pushing her aching bones out of the desk chair she really ought to replace. Yara hummed her agreement as she grabbed her worn white coat by the door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Myrcy’s waiting around by the door,” she confirmed. “Just in case anything happens.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ellaria struggled to place the name as she collected herself, patting down to make sure she had her glasses and her ID. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Baratheon</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she thought. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Myrcella.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Nice girl. Wanted to specialize in neurosurgery. She could be trusted. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t tell anyone anything until I sort this mess out, alright?” She shrugged her coat on, looking down her nose at tiny, tiny Yara. “Not even Dr. Mormont. I don’t need this place turning into a circus because one girl pitched a fit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl gave her a quiet thumbs up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Already is one, ma’am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ellaria cringed at the honorific, despite Yara’s sincerity. Had she really gotten that old? Or did she just look it?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t I know it.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The response was colorless, a lighthouse signal to Captain Obvious that it was time to come ashore. Not cruel, not upset, just...</span>
  <em>
    <span>tired</span>
  </em>
  <span>, as she slipped out the door and down the hall. Doubtless, even without Yara’s help, word would reach upstairs in a matter of hours, and she’d be bogged down with questions the second she’d finished with her surprise patient. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she’d burn that bridge when she got there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was getting rather good at that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The rest of the hospital was quiet, a shrine of beeps and creaks and shallow breathing as she made her way towards the elevators. Patients slept, and nurses chatted quietly to pass the time that seemed to march like an ancient tortoise within those sterile walls. It was a peace that Ellaria would soon leave as she stepped into the elevators, her worn sneakers squeaking on the tile she’d long since memorized the pattern of. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That seemed to be the pattern of her life now. Trading peace for something else. Something more volatile, more fragile. A down feather for a bomb, one only she knew how to disarm. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>One she sometimes wished she could keep from setting itself off. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The elevator cab rumbled, the inner belly of the beast she knew she’d been swallowed by long ago. Should’ve been replaced years ago and she knew it, metal walls scuffed and worn, to the point where she could no longer see herself as she traveled down. She’d always hated elevators, and the slowly settling feeling in the pit of her stomach didn’t help matters this time around. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two floors gave it more than enough time to wrap around her intestines and squeezed - spurred on even more by the noise of the ER once the gunmetal grey doors slid open. It was a buzz of color and movement, as usual, one that made Ellaria glad she’d avoided emergency medicine. Nurses and attendings and registrars, oh my - all of them flitting around, paying little attention to their surroundings as they shuffled from patient to patient, shouting and crying and moving with a speed only possessed by those who could endure it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It gave Ellaria a headache. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>304 was a short waltz down the hall - away from the reception area, thank God - in a corner where they’d clearly stashed whatever Martell had come to give her a stomachache away from where she could attract attention. On the far end of the ER, just past a nurse’s station full of women (and one lone man) giving her a look she could only assume meant, </span>
  <em>
    <span>good luck. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It was dumb luck that got me here in the first place</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she thought as she spotted a blonde head barring the door to one of the last rooms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl couldn’t have been any older than the one she was guarding - as tiny as Yara, but with a stronger set to her jaw. Square shoulders, that slumped back against the ugly grey of the door, and a relief in her eyes as Ellaria approached, holding out a hand for her to shake. She took it eagerly, looking pleased to see someone who knew what they were doing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How is she?” Ellaria asked. “Hasn’t chucked anything heavy at your head, I hope.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Myrcy shook her head with a chuckle. Clearly Ellaria was a better presence than whoever had stationed her in front of the door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s calmed down,” she replied, releasing Ellaria’s hand. “But she won’t let anyone set foot in the room. We promised her you’d be down shortly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"</span>
  </em>
  <span>And down here I am.” Ellaria smiled to cover the anxiety gripping her by her very bones. “You’re free to go.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Myrcy gave her a nod, passing off sterile gloves and a tray full of tools from the nurse’s station. She looked none the wiser to who was behind the door - rather grateful, in fact, to be able to return to her regular rounds. Ellaria didn’t blame her. Being pulled away from your duties to guard a princess throwing a hissy fit? Not the kind of night she’d imagined in medical school either. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>On went the gloves, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>clang </span>
  </em>
  <span>went the tray of tools as Ellaria released Myrcy back to reality. (Not particularly a case she wanted a resident to sit in on.) It was a task to prep herself that quickly, a one-handed battle in the middle of a busy hallway that would earn her no style points from anyone. It felt silly, scrambling like she was fresh out of med school to handle the situation, but when she bumped the door open and saw who was laid out on the fresh bed, something like justification settled in the center of her chest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have to let the intake nurses do their jobs, Obara.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a useless thing to say to the girl and she knew it. Oberyn’s eldest never followed the rules, never bothered listening to what everyone else told her was right. She was as stubborn as her father, with the temper to boot, and she knew it. Knew she’d get her way sooner or later, whether she had to coerce it out of someone or not. She was a Martell, through and through - which was perhaps why Ellaria was so thrown by the way she looked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was unnaturally pale - almost vampiric, under the stiff fluorescents. Too pale for her usual Dornish complexion. Her face looked gaunt, and Ellaria could see where dark circles had begun to dent the space under her eyes. It was as vulnerable as she’d ever seen the girl look, exhausted and clearly in no space to be fighting the help her coworkers were offering. She could see shallow cuts on her hands and upper arms - self-defense wounds, most likely - and the beginnings of bruises forming underneath. She hardly looked the part of a royal princess, if anything - and perhaps that was for the best. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can’t trust them.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her words were clipped. No greeting, no change in expression, no explanation as to why she’d shouted bloody murder for Ellaria despite being in a hospital filled with professionals.The most she received was a flinch as the girl adjusted herself in the bed, a haphazard tourniquet digging into her waist just below her sternum. In another world, it could’ve been a belt, a piece of fashion pioneered by a girl who cut her own hair in her bathroom mirror. But in this world, it only made Ellaria pinch the bridge of her nose. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was going to be a long night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not an ER nurse, sweetheart.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She made it sound as kind as she could as she stepped into the room, glancing briefly at what little the floor nurses had been able to fill out on Obara’s charts. The girl grimaced as she did so, shifting up onto her elbows - which were noticeably still covered in blood. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re the only one who won’t ask questions,” she said, voice still tight and defensive. Ellaria sighed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The intake nurses aren’t cops.” She worried one of her rings between her fingers, giving Obara as quick a once-over as she could without incurring more of the girl’s wrath. “No one is obligated to contact your next of kin unless you’re seriously hurt, or you ask for it.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Obara made what could pass for a shrug in her limited state. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I asked for you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not the same thing, dear.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ellaria shuffled her way into the room, careful to shut the door behind her. She might not have any idea </span>
  <em>
    <span>why </span>
  </em>
  <span>Obara had shown up at her hospital screaming bloody murder, but she certainly didn’t need the rest of the residents finding out when it came to it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let me take a look at that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She waved her hands in the direction of the tourniquet (which looked like it had been stripped straight from someone’s shirt) and sat down on the edge of the bed, Obara’s stiff boots just brushing the fabric of her scrubs. She looked even paler up close - Ellaria could see the veins in her wrists as she (miracle of miracles) moved to obey her. Her usual strong shoulders had slumped - whether from exhaustion or pain, Ellaria didn’t know - and her hands shook with a lack of confidence that was distinctly un-Martell-ish. Yara had been right - too much longer and she might start to lose consciousness. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The fabric came away with a nasty noise, a scratchy, peeling sound that no one should ever have to hear coming from someone else. Someone’s poor shirt was ruined, coming off in pieces as Obara made a noise like a busted radiator vent. Ellaria wondered if her lack of a reaction came off as cold, or if the young girl would understand. Once you’ve had your arms elbow-deep in someone’s ribs, it becomes a bit difficult to react to cosmetic wounds. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That being said...the wound on Obara's stomach was </span>
  <em>
    <span>ugly</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Strips of fabric stuck to her skin where her own blood had pasted them down, and while the tourniquet had done its good, the hole where an otherwise smooth sternum should be would soon join the collection of scars on her torso. The wound looked jagged - from a hunting knife, Ellaria would guess at first glance - and despite her lack of reaction, she wanted to personally throttle whoever it was that had done this to Oberyn’s girl. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Better me than her father,</span>
  </em>
  <span> she thought. </span>
  <em>
    <span>At least I don’t have a reputation to worry about. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And at least I’d do less damage. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Her hands moved as if possessed, gathering a cloth and a dish of clean water to wipe away the worst of the blood. She’d done remarkably well, for someone who didn’t seem like she gave a shit. The fabric had staunched what should have been a rather impressive blood flow, and Ellaria could hear her breathing through the pain, keeping the muscles in her stomach as related as possible. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Some part of Ellaria’s brain wondered if her father had taught her that. If it was necessary for Dornish princesses to know how to handle themselves when their father committed murder for a living. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Looks like this is just a surface wound,” she muttered as she cleaned. “You told Yara it was a knife wound, yeah?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Obara nodded, flinching when Ellaria gently touched the skin near her navel - the sight of a smaller cut, still bleeding but not as serious. The doctor nodded, biting her tongue to hold back a sigh. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whoever came at you only nicked you,” she said. “You’re lucky, Obara. Any more serious and you’d’ve been in trouble.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You say that like I don’t have a </span>
  <em>
    <span>very </span>
  </em>
  <span>troubling hole in my stomach.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Obara took a shallow breath in, and Ellaria could feel the girl’s lungs rattling under her hands. She felt even worse than she looked, clearly. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t tell my father,” she hissed, instinctively shying away from Ellaria.  “Please.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course she had planned to tell Oberyn. What kind of woman would she be if she kept this from her...well, from any parent who loved their child? What kind of doctor would she be if she left Obara to fend for herself, without the assistance she was clearly going to need over the next few days? Calling Oberyn was going to be the very next thing on her list, right after she got the poor thing sewn up and resting for the night. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But something in Obara’s voice made her take pause. Something wobbling, a support beam that had partially rotted away. Something unusual for a young woman with scars on her chest and a tattooed snake running up her arm. A kind of desperation, to keep herself together despite the fact that all that kept her there were some safety pins and a prayer. Something she knew she’d felt at some point too, that she wished someone would’ve recognized.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I won’t tell your father, on one condition.” She mustered as stern a face as she could manage, if only to mask the fear now churning in her stomach like the propeller of a boat. “You tell me exactly how this happened. I can’t treat you if you lie to me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And I don’t know if I’ll be able to live with myself if I don’t know. </span>
  </em>
  <em>
    
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Obara sighed. Clearly, implicating herself in something this serious wasn’t exactly high on her list of priorities. She had a better chance of getting away with whatever it was with Ellaria, but if it put her health at risk…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, at least one of the Martells had a modicum of common sense. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve -- </span>
  <em>
    <span>agh --- </span>
  </em>
  <span>been seeing this guy who works at the Viper Club. We played a show there tonight, and all of a sudden, he pops into the dressing room afterwards reeking of fuckin’ Budweiser. Starts feeling me up, telling Nym and Ty to get lost so we can have </span>
  <em>
    <span>alone time.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl made a face like she’d shotgunned a bottle of NyQuil. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuckin’ perv.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her breath came in through her nose, and went out through her mouth - a Herculean feat, considering Ellaria could nearly hear the way her teeth ground together as she spoke. She tried to move as gently as possible while Obara explained herself, but she found herself going still, some part of her latching on for dear life to her words. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Told him I wouldn’t sleep with his sorry ass, and he flipped.” Obara twirled a hand to suggest aggression, then flinched when the muscles in her stomach flexed. “Asshole—</span>
  <em>
    <span>ngh</span>
  </em>
  <span>, pulled a Bowie knife on me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And did you defend yourself?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A clinical question, but a necessary one. If Oberyn was going to get a court summons in his mailbox, she’d at least like to have the foresight to warn him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hit him where it hurt and got the fuck out of dodge.” Obara rolled her eyes. “I’m the only one with a fucking knife wound, if that tells you anything.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And what happened to your sisters?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>One Martell princess was patient enough for Ellaria. She couldn’t imagine if three heirs to the throne of Dorne were admitted in one night. She wasn’t sure they had adequate staff for that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nym snapped his jaw in two places,” Obara replied. “I’m pretty sure Ty broke his hand.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ellaria tried not to feel a sense of pride in Oberyn’s girls as she leveled her gaze. She was supposed to be a doctor, not an MMA coach...even if they’d done exactly what she would’ve.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Obara sighed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re covering for me at home.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Covering meaning....” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dad thinks I’m with friends from the bar. That I decided to stay out later. Came here so I could be home faster.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Like hell if I’m going to discharge you on a half-assed job, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Ellaria thought. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The Viper Club is in Brooklyn, yeah?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pressed the cloth to Obara’s stomach, wiping away as much of the dried blood and dirt as she could. The girl cringed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” she muttered, “Down by the cemetery.” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You drove all the way from Brooklyn with a hole in your stomach just to see me. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe ‘common sense’ hadn’t been the right phrase to use. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay.” She took a deep breath, tamping down the impulse to berate the princess in much the same way she had her father. “Next time, I suggest you go to Brooklyn Presby and then call me. I’m sure you pissed off some poor cab driver by bleeding all over his backseat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Obara scoffed. Then she flinched. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was hoping there wouldn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>be </span>
  </em>
  <span>a next time, Dr. Sand.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I would hope the same,” Ellaria replied. “But if you girls are anything like your father…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hoped that remark wouldn’t land her with a rock through her window later on in the week - ninth story apartment be damned. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lay back for me,” she said, before Obara could pitch another fit and scare the rest of the ER staff that hadn’t already dealt with her. “I’m going to stitch this up as best I can.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For someone who’d given her a stink eye and called her her father’s slut the first (and only other) time they’d met, Obara was shockingly compliant. Perhaps it was the gaping hole in her stomach, but she acquiesced without question, leaning back against the lackluster hospital pillows and releasing her elbows down to her sides. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ellaria used that to her advantage, prepping a numbing agent before the girl could protest and kick up a fit about what Ellaria was suggesting about her family. She knew it was going to hurt, and some motherly instinct punched at her stomach. A hesitation to see the poor thing in any more pain, despite the rational part of her brain knowing it would help. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Being a mother had skewed her perspective, beyond what she could control as a woman with a doctorate. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Being with a Martell had skewed it even further.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Obara hissed as the needle hit her skin - a sound not unlike the hiss of a viper to Ellaria’s ears. Ellaria depressed the plunger, biting her tongue as she did so. (</span>
  <em>
    <span>Better than the vodka she’d had to use on Oberyn that time</span>
  </em>
  <span>.) It was an ugly sound that came out of Obara, one Ellaria couldn’t get over, no matter how many times she was faced with it. A clip from a sick horror film that Ellaria relived day after day, patient after patient. A Groundhog Day by way of Freddy Krueger. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d seen worse, but somehow this hurt more than the others. It was her lack of ER experience, she told herself. A lack of comfort working in trauma situations. Her hands weren’t used to the sudden onset of shock, hadn’t been given enough time to steady before she had to go about picking lint and metal shavings out of a young girl’s wound. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But something in her brain, something far back beyond the ten years of medical training and everything she kept tied up underneath it, remembered this feeling. Remembered the way her hands had shaken just the same way, on her own couch at home. With another Dornish royal under her needle, squirming the same way Obara did now as the lidocaine kicked in. At the time, she’d attributed it to irritation. Lack of sleep, at having been woken in the middle of the night. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe the nerves were simply a Martell thing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She itched for a name as she removed the needle, something she could surreptitiously take back to Oberyn, insert into a conversation before he made a casual comment about visiting Brooklyn on a random weekday. She wanted some way to help, something more than stitching Obara up and labeling her as a Jane Doe, as much as keeping her face out of the papers would be of use to them all. Her child the girl was not, but something tugged in her stomach to protect her. That eldest daughter instinct, the one link that she knew she and Obara had. A familial instinct to keep her out of harm’s way. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that would be a betrayal of trust - trust Ellaria hardly had as it was. She wasn’t a mother to this girl, not someone she trusted. They weren’t bosom buddies, or friends, or even acquaintances, past the brief few times they’d interacted. To Obara, Ellaria was - like she had been to her father so many times - a means to an end. A contact in an ever-widening spider web of knowledge. A woman who knew how to handle a needle and keep a secret. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you love my dad?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another foreign bomb, dropped over Ellaria’s head with rather unfortunate timing. Not exactly the best question to be asking someone currently holding a needle over your torn stomach - or any time, really. It was hardly a question Ellaria was prepared to ask herself, let alone contend with in front of someone else. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Excuse me?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her hands never paused, but her heart hammered in her ribcage. Obara rolled her eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you love him?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was an odd question, coming from her. She’d accused Ellaria of sleeping around, of using her father for his money and his fame, and generally seemed like she wasn’t a fan of her father’s escapades. Love seemed like just about the last thing a girl like Obara would be concerned with, a girl who pierced her own ears with safety pins and listened to music Ellaria was sure would give her nightmares. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s a big question to ask, Obara.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Seems fair enough,” the girl said, “Considering you’re dating him.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ellaria sighed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We aren’t…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She drifted off when she saw Obara’s face; still gaunt, but filled with something else. Some fire lit behind her eyes. It reminded Ellaria of her father. Of that self-righteous way his chest puffed up whenever people upset him, when they were trying to get a rise out of him that he knew he couldn’t justify. She could see the wheels turning behind Obara’s eyes, watch her plan her strategy five moves in advance. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was certainly her father’s daughter. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>No wonder he’d given her his name. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dad’s always got women around.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She spoke like Ellaria wasn’t there, like she was orating to some unseen audience, far beyond the reaches of what the hospital could contain. The fire was stoked with every word, a bright blaze that gave color to her blanched skin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s like he goes through them faster than he goes through socks. And they’re all completely different. It’s like there’s a fuckin’ store for them or something. Like he’s some kind of James Bond, pulling out whichever one matches his outfit. And none of them give a shit about us. They act like they do, playing mom and doing that stupid bullshit coo thing that makes you want to slap the Botox right out of their faces. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But they don’t, really. Not compared to Dad. Not even when they come home, all bundled up and sickly looking, and all of a sudden I’ve got another sister to worry about. Another kid to protect when the guest bedroom opens up again.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She paused, falling silent. Her eyes looked far away, lost. The eyes of a young girl, not the woman nearing thirty and shaking like a leaf in a storm. A pair of burning embers, waiting to be stoked by the next tragedy that came along.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They just rotate in and out,” she mumbled. Her voice had gone hushed. Dark. “Say they love us and then leave when he chooses us over them. Every time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words stuck in Ellaria’s chest, knives that left holes as big as the one she was closing up on Obara. She knew the feeling all too well, of being a pawn in a game you couldn’t know the rules of until it was much too late to change them. Of being a passerby in your own life, as people come and go and treat you like you’re nothing more than an errant problem, something getting in the way of their success. The feeling of hollow love, despite the fact that she knew Oberyn couldn’t give anything but his whole heart to someone he decided to keep in his life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Any woman who assumes she’s more important than the Martell princesses had another thing coming. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Up until you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Obara’s was still quiet as she continued, eyes finally drawing to where Ellaria was sitting. They looked clearer now, more certain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve been around the longest.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The statement wrapped around Ellaria’s throat and tugged, all the air shot from her chest as she concentrated on stitching Obara up. She’d barely known Oberyn eight months. The fact that that constituted </span>
  <em>
    <span>long </span>
  </em>
  <span>to anyone made her seriously reconsider what kind of a relationship she’d gotten involved in. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Long </span>
  </em>
  <span>was five years, an engagement only ever consummated in a child half the couple didn’t want. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Long </span>
  </em>
  <span>was moving in together, buying stupid appliances and trying your hardest to adjust to someone else’s sleep schedule, because they won’t adjust to yours. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Long</span>
  </em>
  <span> was bickering over grocery lists and who was going to watch the baby - not playdates with daughters and stolen moments in hallways, kissing like you’re teenagers and teetering on the edge of something that could be incredibly dangerous for a twice-broken heart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was never the exception. She was the rule. She was the control group - the normal, boring face on the cereal box, the Nielsen ratings example of a regular American life. She was not the person who stood out, and she’d come to accept that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except, apparently, when it came to Oberyn. No matter what.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dorea loves you,” the young girl said. “She’s always asking where you are, when you can come play again. I don’t think she understands quite who you are.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Obara’s words came unbidden, without any desire for a response. This was a monologue, not a conversation. Her moment to pull from her chest everything that had been sitting there, festering, like the very real wound Ellaria had almost completely sealed up. Her soliloquy. Her chance to be seen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you leave,” she said grimly, “It’s going to hurt her. Hurt all of them. You’re the closest thing to a mom most of my sisters have had in years. The only one some of them have </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever </span>
  </em>
  <span>had.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had his eyes. That curve of his jaw, the way it set with a stiffness only Dornish genes could produce. The way he sat, always on the defense, muscles always tensed. That calculating way he could trap you under his gaze, unable to escape until he got what he wanted. She had a bravery Ellaria could never dream of - unquestionably a Martell. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But there was something else there too. Something from her mother, perhaps, or maybe just a result of growing up with six sisters. A concern. A hesitation, where her father would have leaped his way over the gun. A crease in her brow, a tilt of her head. Something distinctly Obara, that drilled into Ellaria’s chest as the young thing stared her down. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> “I can’t let them get hurt like I did,” she insisted coldly. “So I need to know: </span>
  <em>
    <span>do you love my dad?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>A question that deserved an answer. Perhaps more than any Ellaria had ever been asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was an answer sitting right in front of her, begging at her heels and as obvious as the blood now staining her own hands. </span>
  <em>
    <span>If it was a snake, it would’ve bit you, </span>
  </em>
  <span>her mother would say - and perhaps it was. A snake that had slithered its way into her life, around her ribs and into her heart. A snake that she let squeeze her chest until she couldn’t breathe, all because of the way it looked at her - like she existed, like she was something more than a pair of hands or a trustworthy opinion or an easy fuck in the middle of the night. Like she mattered. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But even then, one thing swirled in the front of her mind, in front of even the snake around her heart. A larger viper, the one that had come into being the day she’d spotted those two positive lines in her bathroom. A viper that had helped her bring life into the world, and knew the value of it. Knew one thing for certain, Oberyn and the rest of the world be damned. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I would never hurt those girls. Not in a million years. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“...Yes. I think I do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was as much an admission to herself as it was to Obara. “I love him” - words she never thought she’d think, let alone say to another person. Words she’d marked as off limits, overused to their breakpoint. An idea she was determined to no longer throw around at will, to any person who showed her even a modicum of kindness and tricked her into thinking they were good people. “I love him” was not something Ellaria had wanted to say. But hearts rarely care about what their owners want. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Obara scowled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thinking it isn’t good enough.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A fair enough statement, Ellaria decided. This wasn’t some little girl not wanting a woman to replace her mother. (As far as Ellaria knew, she’d never had one.) This was a sister concerned for her siblings, for the well-being of another person - or six. She had a good heart, Oberyn’s eldest. For that, she deserved the truth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Love isn’t just something you decide on one day,” she replied, pulling gently at the last of Obara’s stitches. “It’s not something that pops out of nowhere and presents itself to you as some crystal-clear option. It takes time to build up, time to grow. It’s messy.” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Messy</span>
  </em>
  <span> understated it by about a mile, but it was the best word Ellaria had for the moment. The only word, she thought, that could even remotely encapsulate her life with Oberyn. The strange, unbelievable, sitcom script of a life she’d built with that man, who had yanked her from the ordinary into a world where princesses had her at their beck and call, and she was seriously considering what was going to happen if anyone found that out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Messy, complicated, and downright odd. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I haven’t felt the way I do about your father in a long time.” She cut the last of the stitches, and she could see something in Obara relax. “My life is messy, and he’s a good man. He’s raised good girls. For better or for worse, he’s in my life and I don’t think I want to live that life without him. So yes. To answer your question, I suppose I do love him.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Obara didn’t respond to that. For sheer shock or for anger that some common slut (her words, not Ellaria’s) had fallen in love with her father, only she would know. Her face remained stoic as Ellaria bandaged her stomach, sealing gauze over the site with Coban and forcing her to submit to another temperature check. She continued to say nothing as Ellaria cleaned up, and part of her couldn’t decide whether to be unnerved or relieved. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Martells always seemed to have a way of making her feel both. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re going to have to stay overnight,” she said, avoiding Obara’s gaze as she moved to fill in her chart. “I need to keep an eye on those stitches. Make sure you’re not bleeding anywhere you shouldn’t be.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The scratch of pen on paper was the only sound for several moments, aside from their breathing and the bustle of the emergency room outside. It wasn’t until Ellaria had finished with her work - </span>
  <em>
    <span>Jane Doe, no identification, low priority</span>
  </em>
  <span> - that she looked up to see why. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Obara was frowning, the muscles of her jaw clenched tightly enough that Ellaria was sure her dentist would late pitch a fit about it. For a girl who looked as though she could take on the world and would gladly welcome it, she could see tears brimming in the poor thing’s eyes. For what reason, she didn’t know, but it cleaved her heart clean in two.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something in her eyes reminded Ellaria not of her father, but of Elia. Someone’s daughter, trying her hardest to keep it together despite everything piled on her shoulders. A little girl, scared and alone, hoping Ellaria would make it all better. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Motherhood had changed her, and Ellaria had already been a sucker to begin with. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll tell you what.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pushed herself off the bed, a conspiratorial smile already forming on her face as she set the charts back in place. Obara’s brow quirked, jaw no less tense as the doctor turned to look at her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ll discharge you in the morning,” she mused, “And you can come home with me. I’ll tell your father you were too tired to go all the way home, so you came to me. We’ll get you a fresh change of clothes and everything, and you can get some rest away from the screaming of your little sisters.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A choice she might come to regret, but a necessary one anyway. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Martells had welcomed her into their home. It was time she returned the favor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This’ll be our secret, yeah?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She made busy with arranging Obara in the bed, untucking the scritchy hospital-issue blankets from under her feet and moving to tuck her in. She’d have to bring her better blankets later - it got damn cold in these rooms, and she kept a throw tucked in her filing cabinet that would be of much better use here. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But you have to promise me,” she chided, leaning over the girl to fix her pillows. “No more sleeping with skinheads.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Obara sputtered, signature Martell indignance creasing her brow. Clearly Ellaria had surprised her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He wasn’t a—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know what I mean, sweetheart.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ellaria smiled at her, reaching down to stroke the hair away from her face. She could see the bags under her eyes, the eyeliner that had smudged into nothing more than black clouds across her face. The girl didn’t shy away from her touch, didn’t recoil and tell her that she’d done her job, she could leave her and her family well enough alone now. Maybe she was too wiped out to, or maybe she truly didn’t mind. Maybe something had shifted between the two of them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe Obara finally understood that Ellaria wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have to be around to help me protect your sisters, mm?”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Finishing the only gen fic I've written in ages on Valentine's Day? I would never. </p><p>Follow me at <a href="https://ellariasand.tumblr.com/">ellariasand</a> on Tumblr for more Martell family nonsense!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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